Cinema
The City Without Jews
Die Stadt ohne Juden
Hans Karl Breslauer · 1924
Synopsis
Utopia, a small post-war state, suffers from unemployment and galloping inflation; food prices soar and crowds demonstrate. Antisemitic deputies, led by Bernart and Volbert, blame the Jews, and Parliament votes for their expulsion. The convoys leave; soon business, cultural life and the cafés empty, and the city discovers that it is no better off.
Context
The film follows the book by Hugo Bettauer by two years, and tones down its message: Vienna becomes Utopia and several political allusions disappear, to spare the censors and the public. The screenplay was written with Ida Jenbach. Nazis disrupted screenings, and Bettauer was shot a few months after the premiere by a former member of their party, soon released. Long known through an incomplete print found in Amsterdam in 1991, the work was reconstituted after the discovery of an almost complete print at a flea market in Paris in 2015; the restored version was shown in Vienna on 21 March 2018.
Who it is for
An hour and a half in the restored version, in which about ten minutes are still missing. The tone is that of satire, and certain images foreshadow what followed.
Prizes and reception
Regarded today as one of the first stands taken by cinema against antisemitism, and for a long time the most sought-after Austrian silent film.
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